descent from 8,000 feet to avoid ground-fire ends badly when aircraft pitches over violently at low altitude, impacting in heavily wooded, marshy area at Mountain Creek Lake, near Dallas, Texas, killing three crew. Airframe destroyed by impact and post-crash fire. KWF are contract pilot Stuart Madison, co-pilot Charles Jester, and hoist operator John Omvig. Investigation finds cause to be failure of tail propeller control system, causing overspeed condition which generated unexpected and uncontrollable nose-down pitch. 10 May Northrop M2-F2, NASA 803, during the 16th glide flight, crashes on landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, due to a pilot-induced oscillation coupled with misjudged height and drift. Airframe rolls over six times, footage used for television program The Six Million Dollar Man. Pilot Bruce Peterson survives. 28 May Talon 38 A – Crash Moody AFB, Valdosta, GA – Student pilot 1st Lt. Harold C. Barnes, instructor Captain Les Rippey killed. Plane flipped on landing. Instructor killed instantly, student survived until ejector dashed him into tarmac incurring severe head injuries. Lt. Barnes survived until that evening, when he succumbed to injuries at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida. Crash was determined to be caused by cross wind and inexperienced pilot. 8 July Boeing B-52D Stratofortress, 56-0601, of the 22d Bomb Wing, March AFB, California, operating in Southeast Asia with the 4133d Bomb Wing (Provisional), (call signs Brown 02 as part of a three-aircraft cell, and Corny 26 alone) overruns the runway on landing at Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam, due to not having full braking power (no flaps) as well as touching down at the mid-point of the 10,000 foot runway, and runs into a minefield. Mines go off, killing five of her six crew, only the tailgunner escaping when the tail section breaks away from the rest of the airframe. The crew was from the 736th Bomb Squadron, 454th Bomb Wing, Columbus AFB, Mississippi. The aircraft had suffered battle damage over Vinh, North Vietnam, losing all hydraulics and an electrical malfunction that led to the flameout of two engines, the pilot diverting to Da Nang for an emergency landing. This was the 43d B-52 to be lost. 29 July A deckfire on the USS Forrestal caused by an unintentional firing of a Zuni rocket by an electrical short-circuit from the underwing rack of a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II at 1051 hrs. holes the fuel tank of a McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.